by W E Johns
“All right. Algy, you come with me,” he ordered. “The rest of you can get ready to board the plane. We might as well take the jeep,” he went on, speaking to Algy as they set off. “ I don’t think it came to any harm in the shooting.”
With four of Christophe’s troops hanging on they were soon outside Christophe’s headquarters. Going into the bedroom, leaving the troops outside, they had no difficulty in finding, under the bed, the trap door Christophe had described. Biggles lifted the lid, and there lay the General’s portfolio. There, too, were so many packets of dollar bills that he let out a low whistle. “Suffering Jupiter !” he exclaimed. “Christophe certainly did make his pals pay through the nose. Just a minute!” He peeled off one of the notes and examined it closely. “I wouldn’t say for certain, but I have a feeling that these notes are phoney. If they are, that, for Christophe, will be about the final crack. Well, he chose his pals, I didn’t. I wouldn’t say anything about it—yet. Let him pay his troops or they may cut up rough. You know—where ignorance is bliss....”
They stuffed the notes into their pockets. Biggles took the bag and they returned to the jeep. In five minutes they were back on the airfield. Biggles gave Ginger the bag to put in the machine. The notes he gave to Christophe with a brief “Here you are.” Christophe paid his men who, having guilty consciences, had elected to make their way on foot to the coast—having, Biggles suspected, looted the camp of anything worth taking.
That was all. They took their places in the aircraft, Tony at the controls, and a few minutes later the scene of Christophe’s ambitious project was fading away astern.
CONCLUSION
THERE IS LITTLE MORE to tell beyond one or two details about which the reader may be curious. The two aircraft, the Hastings and the Auster, flew to Accra, the British airport on the Gold Coast, where Bertie and Christophe were sent straight to hospital, and Biggles, before doing anything else, sent a radio signal to Air-Commodore Raymond, who came out as fast as a plane could bring him. By the time of his arrival Biggles and Ginger had had some sleep, some food and a bath, and showed little signs of what they had been through.
Biggles told the Air-Commodore all that had happened, handing him General Mander’s portfolio which, as the General was already on his way to the United States, was passed to the American Consul. That was the last they saw of it. Some time later Biggles had a letter from the General thanking him for recovering it.
Bertie was only a couple of days in hospital. As soon as he was discharged as fit to travel they all flew home. Christophe was in hospital for some time. Of what finally became of him nothing was known, beyond the fact that he was “taken care of” by the United States authorities—whatever that might mean. The dollar notes, as Biggles suspected. turned out to be spurious, which explained why von Stalhein or his employers were prepared to pay a high price to Christophe for certain documents. As the money was worthless it didn’t matter how much they paid.
The fate of Dessalines, Christophe’s partner, remained a mystery. He was never heard of again. If he was not killed by the conspirators when they seized the aircraft then he must have realized that the game was up and gone into hiding.
How von Stalhein and his associates left the country was never ascertained. Biggles was in favour of proceeding forthwith on a search for the Hastings, which it was thought must still be in Africa, but as there was no clue as to which way it had flown the Air-Commodore held that it would be a waste of time to search the entire continent. R.A.F. and military units stationed in Africa were warned to be on the watch for it, but no reports from them were received. But von Stalhein must have known that the authorities would be on the look-out for him, for when, weeks after, the machine was found on the ground by some natives, it was less than a hundred miles from where it had taken off—in the French Sudan, to be precise.
The Liberian Government, as was expected, denied all knowledge of the affair. It could have been the truth, for they volunteered the information that a number of foreign traders and commercial agents in the capital had disappeared suddenly. Some of these might have comprised the force collected to attack Christophe’s camp. But nothing could be proved.
So ended the story of the missing machines. On the face of it, it was an extraordinary affair; but as Biggles pointed out, it was really no more extraordinary than other events in an age wherein the extraordinary had become the rule rather than the exception.
